Study details and findings

For the study, researchers followed 35 students attending engineering lectures at Graz University of Technology in Austria. In week one of the study, half of the students attended a 50-minute lecture through a video call in a nearby lab before attending an in-person lecture the next week, while the remaining students attended the in-person lecture first before switching to the video lecture.

All participants were monitored with electroencephalogram and electrocardiogram instruments to measure electrical activity in their brains and their heart rhythms. Participants also answered surveys about their mood and levels of fatigue.

According to the researchers, there were "notable" differences between the in-person and online groups. Participants who attended the video lectures reported their fatigue grew over the course of the session, and their brain states showed that they struggled to pay attention. The in-person participants also reported feeling happier and more active compared to the online participants who said they were tired, drowsy, and "fed up."

"[W]ith 50 minutes of videoconferencing, significant changes in physiological and subjective fatigue could be observed," said Rene Riedl, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and a co-author of the study. "Based on our research results, we recommend a break after 30 minutes."

Overall, the researchers said that videoconferencing "should be considered as a possible complement to face-to-face interaction, but not as a substitute," especially since it could lead to "cognitive costs."

The researchers also noted that the research should be replicated in business and household settings to more accurately understand how video calls affect participants. Future studies should also include a broader participant base, as well as more portions of the brain for analysis.

Commentary

According to Arjun Venkatesh, a professor and chair of emergency medicine at Yale University, the study is "small but mighty in many ways."

"What they found is something new," Venkatesh said. "It wasn't just that on surveys people reported fatigue after having the video, but it was actually true based on their physiology, they could measure it in the brainwaves. They could see it in their heart rate. They were more inattentive, they were more sad and they reported more fatigue."

Although the study focused on college students and may not be applicable to workers, Venkatesh said that there are still ways to reduce your potential "Zoom fatigue" during the workday.

"There's times when you may be in an office setting and you have the chance to choose between the Zoom meeting or doing it in person but walking down the hall — choose the latter," he said.

Venkatesh also recommended scheduling breaks between your video meetings when possible.

"Stacking those meetings back to back so that there's no break, no chance for the brain to recharge, the heart to relax again, probably makes this these kinds of symptoms worse," he said. "So making those smart choices within a workday can really help people maybe mitigate or prevent some of these symptoms." (Blakemore, Washington Post, 11/25; Diaz, The National News, 11/26; Moniuszko/Green, CBS News, 11/28)

Access our top resources to support a culture of staff health and wellbeing.